HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                          3

he considerably reduced the normal Democratic majority ; in 1869 served
as deputy internal revenue collector of the seventh district, embracing
Clay and Owen counties held the office of town treasurer for a term
in 1873, at the first election for city officers, was beaten for mayor by
only nineteen votes, running on the Republican-Temperance ticket; and
in 1876 declined the Republican nomination for representative of the
state legislature. In 1879 President Hayes appointed him postmaster
of Brazil; at the expiration of his term in 1883 he was re-appointed by
President Arthur, and served nearly two years under President Cleve-
land, altogether holding the postmastership for a period of eight years
and two days. In 1897 Captain Robertson retired from active business of
every nature, and is now enjoying the comforts and honors to which
his many years of faithful and able labors entitle him. In 1900 he was
the Republican candidate for state senator from the district composed of
Clay and Owen counties, and failed of election by only five hundred votes,
although the district generally carries a large Democratic majority.
    Captain Robertson is one of the honored veterans in both the benevo—
lent fraternity of the Masons and the patriotic order of the Grand Army
of the Republic. In 1859 he was initiated in Clay lodge No 85, A.F.
& A. M. at Bowling Green and in 1904 was honored with the pastmas-
ter's jewel of Brazil lodge No. 264; is also a member of Brazil chapter
No.59,R. A. M.  and of Brazil council No. 40, R. and S. M His special
affiliation with the Grand Army of the Republic is as a member of Gen—
eral Canby post No. 2 of Brazil, this being the second post organized in
Indiana. It would be difficult to determine whether Captain Robertson
is stronger as a Republican or as a temperance leader, but whenever pos-
sible he has obviated any necessity for such comparison by combining his
advocacy of such principles
    On the 16th of May, 1866, Thomas M. Robertson was united in
marriage with Miss Eunice Buell,a native of Venice, Butler county
Ohio born on the 7th of December, 1836. She is a daughter of Ephraim
and Margaret ( Shaw) Buell, her father being born at Ledyard, New
York, on the 5th of July 1798, and dying in the year 1847. The mother
was born in September, 1800, and died on the 5th of September, 1867.
Their marriage occurred at Venice, Butler county, Ohio, July 2, 1818, the
ceremony being performed by Robert Anderson, justice of the peace.
Three of their ten children are still living, viz. Mrs. Robertson ; Jo-
seph, a resident of Brookfield, Missouri; and Lucinda, widow of S. T. L.
Miles, who lives in Bowling Green. Ephraim Buell was one of the pio-
neer farmers of Butler county, a Mason in honorable standing, and a
Whig of the old Henry Clay stamp. Major General Don Carlos Buell,
the Union general who commanded the Department of the Ohio during
the first part of the Civil war, was his cousin. The first of the Buell
family to come to America was William Buell, who was born at Ches-
terton, England, about 1610: came to America in 1630 and settled at
Dorchester Heights; removed to Windsor, Connecticut, some six years
later, and died November 23, 1681.

    DR. JOSEPH C. GIFFORD, an active and able practitioner of Brazil,
is a son of Dr. William H. Gifford, for more than half a century a phy-
sician and a public man of high standing in Clay county. Joseph C. is a
native of Williamstown, that county, where be was born on the 27th of
September, 1842, a child by his father’s first marriage to Almira Curtis.